On Saturday, the state-run news media sought to equate the Dalai Lama, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, with the Nazis and their genocidal war on European Jews.

“The remarks of the Dalai Lama remind us of the cruel Nazis during the Second World War,” it said, adding, “How similar it is to the Holocaust committed by Hitler on the Jews!”

It also called him a “tricky liar skilled in double-dealing.”

The comments referred to past statements in which the Dalai Lama condemned policies that encouraged Han Chinese migration to Tibetan areas and others that favored Chinese-language instruction over Tibetan in predominately Tibetan schools.

An official of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharmsala, India, said the Dalai Lama had stated that he did not support self-immolation. “We are concerned about China shifting the blame on the Dalai Lama, making him the scapegoat, rather than correcting their own repressive policies,” said Dicki Choyang, minister of the exile government’s Department of Information and International Affairs.

One activist group, the London-based Free Tibet, released a video on Friday of one of the most recent self-immolations, showing the death of Sonam Thargyal, a 44-year-old farmer who doused himself with kerosene before setting himself alight earlier this month.

Dicki Choyang, of the exiled government, said China’s description of the population proposal was “totally misleading”. The proposal “never suggested removing established communities but advised preventing a massive transfer in the future”, she said.